There are 3 main things that a white should know how to do: attack, defend, and geld. Making it to the top requires you to know when to do each of them. If you are surrounded by allies, or just want to take a break from fighting, gelding is an excellent choice. If you want to gain land, you obviously need to know how to attack. And to hold onto your land a good defense is necessary.
White is the easiest of the 5 colors to build a defense for. Here are some of the elements of a tough white defense:
| Love and Peace | This spell gives +30% hit points and -30% attack to your army. ALWAYS make sure it is running when you log off. |
|---|---|
| Archangels | They have such good hit points and resists that even blue mages use them as top stack. With L&P running they are almost impossible to crack. On almost every defense you should put as them first or second stack. |
| Dominions | They have rather low hit points, but they come back in masses when the ressurection spell is cast. If you stack them first or second you must set ressurection on defense, but stacking them lower is also an option. Note that there are several anti-Dom strategies your opponents may try. |
| Unicorns | They have very nice resistances against most attacks, especially fire and poison. You will be using them a lot on offense, so you might as well keep them for defense. They have two major weaknesses: treants and mind rippers. |
| Knight Templars | They have decent hit points and ressurection. Very good melee and ranged resistance makes them ideal for blocking treants and mind rippers. However, they die to poison and fire attacks. |
| Mind Rippers | Good resistances, very good attack, but very difficult to summon. They make a great lower defensive stack. |
| Preachers | Awesome resistances, horrible attack, horrible upkeep. A few thousand preachers make a good decoy stack if the enemy has more stacks than you. |
| Angels | THEY ARE LOUSY! The only use you might have for them is a small number as a decoy stack. |
| Fodder Units | You might want to stack some other low-power units, and Love and Peace gives them an edge defending against opponents' fodder. They work well as long as they don't meet any low-stacked complex units. |
Now let's look at what a smart enemy will try to use to puncture your L&P-enhanced defensive units:
| Trick | Massive amounts of Wraith and Chimera |
|---|---|
| Kills | Archangels |
| Counter | They paralyze easily, and die easily. Either set paralyze on defense if you expect them, or stack many low ranged units to take them out. Or replace AA with Doms. |
| Trick | Treants |
| Kills | Unicorns, Mind Rippers, just about every other ground stack too |
| Counter | Use a Carpet of Flying, a Brooch of Protection, or The Spider's Web to escape from them. The green spell Web of the Spider Woman is also good in a pinch. |
| Counter counter | Treants with Ash of Invisibility (beats web), Call Hurricane or Carpet of Flying (beats carpet), Flame Blade or Sword of Light or Vial of Venom (beats brooch) |
| Counter counter counter | Use full barriers |
| Trick | Flameshield |
| Kills | Archangels, Dominions, Knight Templars, other hand-to-hand units |
| Counter | Use full barriers or paralyze the stack to prevent a burst |
| Trick | Blood curse |
| Kills | Ressurecting Dominions |
| Counter | Use full barriers and Protection from Evil |
| Trick | Massive amounts of Mind Ripper, Phoenix, or other high-damage units |
| Kills | Ressurecting top-stack Dominions by wiping out the entire stack |
| Counter | Use more Dominions, build more forts, buy a hero that improves your hit points. |
| Counter counter | Use Monkey Brains or Oil Flasks to kill more Doms |
| Counter counter counter | Use full barriers |
Many people consider white the most challenging color to attack with, since their great defensive units do poorly on offense. While it is true that most white units have only poor to average attack, white has several ways to increase their attack.
| Sword of Light | This spell adds holy attack type to non-ranged attacks AND boosts these attacks by 30%. It is by far the most useful attack spell. |
|---|---|
| The Holy Light | This is the enchantment version of Sword of Light; it adds holy attack type to all attacks and boosts these attacks by about 15%. It is cumulative with Sword of Light. While this sounds great, it drains 25% of your mana when running. Cast it to attack and sometimes to defend, but dispell it before you spend a lot of turns. |
| Love and Peace | NOT! You should never attack when this is running; check the life of the spell and plan to attack when it expires. You can dispell it with enough mana, but it's better to plan ahead. |
| Potion of Valor | This item boosts human units' attack by 30%. Obviously you want a lot of human units in your army if you use this. |
| Monkey Brains | This item boosts psychic attacks by 100%. It's best to use it when you have a lot of mind rippers, nymphs, and sirenes. |
| Unicorns | They have a powerful magic attack, and their extra melee attack is great for killing simple fodder units. Unicorns have a place in every offense. |
| Angels | THEY ARE LOUSY! Don't bother trying to attack with them; disband them to reach targets with a smaller army. |
| Off-color units | These tend to be expensive to summon, but their attack powers make them worth it. Mind rippers, werebears, salamanders, hellhounds, nymphs, and sirenes all make good offensive units in certain situations. It is best to keep them out of your top 4 stacks to avoid costly resummoning. |
| Heroes | If you geld a lot, any hero with valor, tactics, song, or berserk is a great addition to your offense. Remember to keep a decent sized stack for each hero to command, and white heroes always command white human stacks if you have them. |
| AA/uni/KT/MR/werebear/crusader/paladin/knight/high priest |
|---|
| Use Sword of Light/Potion of Valor to beat up any black ground units. |
| uni/Dom/MR/KT/fodder |
| Use Sword of Light/Head of Medusa to rip up most reds. |
| AA/Dom/KT/uni/fodder |
| Use Sword of Light/Ash of Invisibility to pound any liches in a blue's top 4 stacks. |
| AA/KT/uni/salamander/hellhound |
| Use Web of the Spider Woman/Oil flasks to get revenge on pure treant stacks. (IMPORTANT: only works on single-stack treants!) |
| uni/KT/MR/AA/sirene/nymph/high priest/catapult |
| Use Paralyze/Monkey Brains to cause major pain on a heavy Phoenix stack. |
| unicorn |
| Use Sword of Light to wreak havoc on offense. Cast Flight on defense. It's not the safest strategy, but it's certainly fun :) |
White has the best geld income in the game due to the +60% geld bonus Love and Peace gives. This makes white the best color to collect uniques, heroes, and other expensive stuff that the top mages have.
Here's a sample geld kingdom:
| Love And Peace |
| Weather Summoning |
| Concentration |
| Land: 2000 |
| Farm: 1050 |
| Town: 525 |
| Workshop: 200 |
| Node: 205 |
| Fortress: 20 |
| Barrier: 0 |
| Units: 0 |
| Base Income: 1.5 million |
| Net Income: 1.4 million |
Strategy: Geld for all your turns, but watch the life of the Love and Peace spell. When it hits 10 turns left, recast. That way you will never be without it. You will make 1 billion geld every 350 turns of gelding.
Now obviously you can't do this kind of gelding on 3500 land, since you need to support some army. The best gelding defense is a pure Gate army; disband most of it before you start gelding, then resummon at the end. Make sure your stacks are AA/unicorn/knight/angel when you log off. This will block many random attacks and pillages, and also leave you free to geld for most of your turns. Pure Dom also blocks attacks but it leaves you exposed to pillages, so it is not as highly recommended.
Remember that while you are gelding income is more important than land, so don't be too upset if you lose a random. Just attack or explore back up and keep gelding. If your defense leaves you with less than 3 million total income while gelding, you should rethink your strategy or drop in rank so you don't need to support an army.